campaign: Solidarity with Iraqi workers!

Submitted by Anon on 23 March, 2004 - 8:35

No Sweat are organising solidarity with the re-emerging labour movement in Iraq. Who will fight for democratic rights and decent living conditions in Iraq? The best hope is the re-emerging labour movement. For 35 years the Ba'thist dictatorship crushed all independent politics and trade-union organisation. Now independent trade unions have been formed, distinct from Saddam's old state-controlled General Federation of Trade Unions.
The Union of the Unemployed in Iraq campaigns for jobs or unemployment benefit of $100 a month for Iraq's huge numbers of jobless.

Organisation and activism can make a difference. Iraqi unions have won wage rises in some sectors, or the replacement of old Ba'thist managers, or some recognition from the occupation authorities.

Protests forced the US occupation authorities to drop the Governing Council's plans to introduce Sharia law. The US has been forced to slow down its plans for privatisation. But the US occupation authorities are keeping on Saddam's 1987 labour law, which bans unionisation and collective bargaining in the public sector.

No Sweat are campaigning for demands such as the following, raised by the Union of the Unemployed of Iraq:

Freedom of worker organisation

Freedom to strike; a right of access to the media for strikes

A ban on strike-breaking

A minimum wage

Equal pay for women

Unemployment benefit for the jobless

Safe and healthy workplaces.

In its fight for freedom, democracy, and workers' rights, the re-emerging labour movement urgently needs our support. It faces attacks from the US/UK occupation forces and from right-wing forces inside Iraq. Its enemies have strong support from outside Iraq. It is down to us to ensure that the Iraqi labour movement has outside support, too.

What you can do:

Invite a No Sweat speaker on the Iraqi labour movement to your antiwar group, student society, or trade union branch,